 Obviously, for those very warm words, it's a real pleasure to be back again in the Institute of International and European Affairs and to see so many old friends. I'm the elder today and it's officially been designated but long time friends from different walks of life and also some younger people, which is good too because this institute is building a kind of leadership through the many meetings that are convened cyd-dwylltio hefyd yn unedol iawn. Rwy'n bwysig ydych chi'n gwybod y cerddio'r cyd-dwylltio, ac mae'r cyd-dwylltio mewn cyfnoddau yn gwahanol i'r cymrydiau cymrydiau. Rwy'n gweithio'r cyd-dwylltio am y cerddio cymrydiau a gweithio ymwneud o ymddangos cyfrydiau fel mae'n cefnoddau cymrydiau o'r cyd-dwylltio. Ysgolwch cyfrydiau dipped in the nexus of climate change and human rights and seeks to focus on what impacts climate change has on the most marginalized and disenfranchised in our global community. The lens of climate justice brings what can be an abstract and quite obstrous phenomenon into sharp and particular immediate focus I that really illuminates the human face of climate change and the devastation that it can cause to the poorest. I believe that climate justice can modify our collective and individual focus from the mindset of the developed world. a hynny, wir yn byw yn gwneud honno'r defnyddio desgyn nhw'n cymhwysig ac yn cyryd dechonomiaeth yn cael ei f conquistol o'r cyflosfaid ac mae'r syniadau ac yw, mae hynny, gallu y cyfrwyr fawr mewn gwir ym Mrydau ac mae hynny, gallu ffaith mewn gwir ymlaen, a'r cyfrwyr ymlaen a'u 80 yn gwneud hwnnw yn dylunol wedi effadeol oedd yr adweddol iawn mawr yn anodol, ac mae'r adweddol iawn wahl. You'd be aware that the high level of global greenhouse gas emissions is the predominant driver of climate change. Climate justice incorporates the principle of corrective justice. The idea that the wealthiest nations who have disproportionately contributed to the stock of emissions through their use of fossil fuel resources have a moral obligation to address the problems of those nations which have historically made almost no contribution to the level of these emissions. This moral obligation must be used to persuade major emitters that they have to make deep cuts as a matter of urgency and significant absolute reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. This is necessary as the countries and the peoples who are most vulnerable to climate are those who have less capacity also to address the problems that they have not caused. Let's bear in mind that the 50 least developed countries in the world are responsible for less than 1% of the greenhouse gas emissions. That I think puts the justice picture in the right frame. They're suffering through disruption to weather patterns, changing seasonality and impacts on subsistence agriculture. Nothing brought this reality home to me more than the recent visit that I made to Somalia and the Horn of Africa at the invitation of the three aid agencies, as you know, concerned worldwide, Trocra and Oxfam Ireland, to draw attention to the scale of the problem. It was a very difficult visit because very shortly after arriving there I realized that the situation is so much worse on every count. The country Somalia has not had a functioning proper government over the 19 years since I had been there as president of Ireland. At the time we were trying to mediate between fighting warlords, I even talked to warlords at the time. But now the situation has deteriorated into an al-Shabaab which has some links with Al Qaeda and has been particularly vicious and violent to the people of Somalia. Food prices are at an all-time high so even if there is some food it's out of the range of those who are literally dying of starvation. And the impacts of climate change were beginning to be felt. I was very struck by the fact that the Horn of Africa has suffered the eight hottest years ever recorded in the last eight years. So we inevitably are seeing the impact. Climate scientists and Dr Tara Shine, who works for me in the office of Mayor Robinson Foundation, climate justice, are prudent and hesitant to directly attribute. But there's no doubt in my mind that when you have the eight hottest years and prolonged drought then we are seeing the beginnings of those impacts. While we were actually there, two regions of Somalia were declared to be famine regions and I understand that maybe even today that famine area in Somalia may be greatly extended. That was also heartbreaking because we know that the UN uses very strict criteria for declaring famine. It means that thousands of children are dying. While we were there it was estimated about 28,000 children had already died and that was last July and the situation has not had the degree of response that we would have wished. I felt I must say a sense of kind of anger and outrage that in the 21st century we were declaring famine anywhere in the world. It's not just a problem for the Somali people or a problem of drought. It's a problem of engagement of all of us and the fact that the calls by aid agencies were not listened to adequately and the need now still to respond. And I must say Irish people have been responding extremely generously. I think if any calculation is done we perhaps per head of population are the most generous in the world. I haven't seen that prove but I certainly know that the response has been very generous. It's the recognition of the human rights dimension of climate change that encouraged me coming back to Ireland and being delighted to do that to start the Mayor Robinson Foundation climate justice. The foundation puts forward if you like a vision for how climate justice can influence and shape negotiations on climate change and ultimately lead to equitable burden sharing and greater equality through financial assistance and technology transfer. The fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which was published in 2007 highlights a number of basic human rights that are severely impinged upon because of climate change. The first is the right to water. Water volumes stored in glaciers and snow cover are very likely to decline, reducing summer and autumn flows in regions where more than a sixth of the world's population currently live. It's likely that drought affected areas will increase and extreme precipitation events which may increase in frequency and intensity will augment flood risk. I saw the flood risk myself in February when I was in Bangladesh at the invitation of BRAC and also looking at projects of concern. We flew in a seaplane to the delta area where the impacts of a hurricane were still being felt because dykes had broken and had not been fixed. There were hundreds and hundreds of miles of fields under brackish water so it was no longer possible to grow the rice that used to grow. It was necessary to change to fishing in partly brackish water. We saw the women and men adapting. The word adapt now has some meaning for me because those were whole communities that had to adapt. For example, crabs can be fished in brackish water but crabs aren't eaten by the local Muslims. So it was a Hindu family that we were talking with who were fishing and making an income from the crabs provided they could get a market quite a far away from the locality. All of this brought home to me what we really mean about needing to have more funding and support for adaptation. By 2020, between 75 and 250 million people in Africa are projected to be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change, particularly in the arid regions of Sub-Saharan Africa and the range land systems in parts of eastern Africa. Coupled with increased demand because of increased population, this will adversely affect livelihoods and increase stresses on water systems. The sad reality is this may lead to conflict, as it has in some places already, and mass displacement of people. The second basic right that the report in 2007 identified is the right to food. Projected changes in the frequency and severity of extreme climate events, together with increases in the risks of fire, pestilence and disease outbreak, will have significant consequences on agricultural production and increase food insecurity for small holder and subsistence farmers as well as pastoralists. Before we went into Somalia, with concern in particular, we drove through part of the Chobi Desert, and we were advised by a wonderful pastoralist. Well actually he's a messai who is a veterinary surgeon, and he is a champion of the pastoralists. And he pointed out to me which I hadn't appreciated, that pastoralists comprise about 20% of the population of Kenya, which is a country of approximately 40 million, so that's about 8 million people. And that they live on the 80% of the land of Kenya, which is arid, which again was an interesting figure to go with that. And he was talking about the need for a policy for pastoralists, which much more encouragement of diversity, smaller herds, camels being better than goats, what you could do in growing, in having chickens and developing honey, and the work that they were doing, but the policies are not there sufficiently to encourage that. The projected relative risks attributable to climate change show an increase in malnutrition, particularly of young people and the elderly, and expected trends in warming are projected to decrease the availability of crop yields in seasonally dry and tropical regions. In some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50% by 2020. 2020 is just over 8 years away. This will increase hunger and malnutrition and affect child growth and development, particularly in those regions that are already most vulnerable to food insecurity. This is an area where Ireland has already got a very good international reputation, a reputation of tackling hunger and of addressing issues of food security, and it's an issue that I think we need to keep putting in the forefront of the world agenda. The third basic human right is the right to health. By 2030, coastal flooding is projected to result in a large increase in mortality. Globally, it's estimated that an additional 220 to 400 million will be at risk of malaria. By 2085, it's estimated that the risk of dengue from climate change will increase significantly. A just published report from the Climate Institute in Australia called, A climate of suffering, the real cost of living within action on climate change, warns, and I quote, The damage caused by changing climate is not just physical. Recent experience shows extreme weather events also pose a serious risk to public health, including mental health and community well-being, with serious flow-on consequences for the economy and wider society. Actually, that report focuses very significantly on mental health issues arising from climate change, which I haven't seen done or done adequately elsewhere. Finally, there's the right to preservation of territorial boundaries. Towards the end of the 21st century, projected sea level rise will affect, as you know, low-lying coastal areas with large populations. Deterioration in coastal conditions, for example, through erosion of beaches, degradation of mangroves, and coral bleaching, is expected to affect fisheries and tourism. The cost of adaptation could amount to at least 5-10% of GDP. In addition, sea level rise is expected to exacerbate inundation, storm surges, erosion, and other coastal hazards, thus threatening vital infrastructure, settlements, and facilities that support the livelihoods of island communities. A friend of mine that some of you may have heard when she was recently in Dublin, Ursula Rakova, is busy making arrangements to evacuate 1,500 islanders from the small catarate island in the South Pacific to Bougainville, a larger island that's part of Papua New Guinea. She's a member of climate-wise women, a great group of grassroots women who speak out in the United States, in Europe and elsewhere, about the delicate process of negotiating with the communities of Bougainville for land and, just as essential, the acceptance by her people from the catarate islands by the people of Bougainville. Recently, when she spoke at an event in Dublin, which MRFCJ had hosted, she spoke movingly about the trauma of moving people from the island where their ancestors were buried, that intangible link that is so strong in indigenous peoples, and is a very high price that they have had to pay. Thus, it's becoming increasingly apparent that climate change is not just an environmental or economic issue, but also a human rights, and indeed, as I've often emphasised, a gender issue, which creates a moral imperative to act. This human rights dimension potentially offers an avenue of hope for those who are frustrated with the incremental approach, what sometimes one might call the glacial progress of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the UNFCCC negotiations, and who view climate change and the transigence of major emitters of greenhouse gases as a violation of human rights law. Climate change is a supranational phenomenon that doesn't respect national territorial boundaries. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, you knew I was going to mention it, didn't you? I never make a speech without at least some reference. As an article that we don't often refer to, article 28, which states, everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which their rights and freedoms can be fully realised. Arguably, climate change presents a persuasive threat to the universal enjoyment of human rights, and in many ways, that can be a vision that feels very far away from those who are in vulnerable regions. In March 2009, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution, resolution 10.4, put forward initially by the Maldives and then supported by a great number of countries including Ireland, which noted the effects of climate change on the enjoyment of basic human rights, and the Human Rights Council is continuing to assess these effects. Indeed, next week on the 13th of September, I'll participate in Geneva at a side event of the Human Rights Council on Climate Change and Human Rights co-hosted by Ireland and the Maldives. A focus on human rights and climate justice allows for an assessment of harms to actual communities, as well as procedural guarantees and process rights that have evolved within human rights law. Making this link between human rights and climate change potentially allows a plaintiff or petitioner to invoke a torts-based argument and seek redress or basic compensation from corporations or governments who refuse to act and who are seen to have violated human rights. However, this area, as a number of you will know, creates a number of problems. First, it's difficult to establish causality between the harm done, or what we would call the tortuous act, and direct damage suffered. Secondly, it's difficult to establish liability and apportion damages. Thirdly, it may be difficult to establish legal standing or local stand-eye. For example, in the case of Friends of the Earth against late law environmental services in the year 2000, the US Supreme Court has held that to satisfy standing requirements, a plaintiff must show that it has suffered an injury in fact that is A, concrete and particularised, and B is actual or imminent. This can be particularly difficult to prove in long-term cumulative gradual environmental issues, such as climate change, with more diffuse or insidious impacts. This issue of standing was also raised in the more recent case of Massachusetts against the Environmental Protection Agency in 2007, which concerns the regulation of greenhouse gases, and the US Supreme Court held that a plaintiff must demonstrate that the injury is caused in some respect by the entity being sued, thus emphasising the issue of causality. The link between extraterritorial climate change and human rights was explicitly made in December 2005, when an alliance of the Inuit people from Canada and the United States, led by a wonderful woman, Sheila Watt Clutier. I know Sheila well, she's a Canadian Inuit. They filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights. The petition alleged that the human rights of the plaintiffs had been infringed and were being further violated due in large part to the failure of the United States to curb its greenhouse gas emissions. This case was innovative in that it not only confronted an international tribunal with the serious human rights consequences of climate change, but linked the accent omissions of the US government and the suffering of particular Inuit peoples. Although it didn't succeed on its merits, this case is regarded as having made a breakthrough in the broad principles involved. However, despite the litigation possibilities afforded by viewing climate change as a human rights issue, there's still the need to secure a legally binding agreement under the auspices of the UN FCCC. Although it may be possible to achieve political agreement on certain issues, these are at the behest of the incumbent governments and they can fluctuate just depending on political priority. A legally binding agreement would ensure that richer nations provide adequate financial and technical support to enable the poorest countries to adapt to climate change and embrace low-carbon development. Furthermore, a legally binding agreement would provide assurances for parties to the UN FCCC that commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will be met and demonstrate symbolic value, particularly for developing countries and nations that are vulnerable to climate change, that there is a deeply embedded international resolve to tackle the issue. Put simply, without a legally binding international agreement, there is no obligation to act. However, it's becoming increasingly unlikely that a legally binding agreement will occur prior to the expiration of the first Kyoto protocol commitment period in December 2012, December of next year. This creates an acute sense of urgency in the run-up to the Conference of the Parties, COP 17, in Durban this December, as well as the Rio Plus 20 discussions in June next year. The issue is a technical one, but this is a very good audience in which to discuss these issues and MRFCJ is co-hosting with the Grantham Institute of the London School of Economics on a meeting on this subject of legal form this week on the 9th of September. We've brought together a group of experts and I just wanted to summarize some of the issues that we'll be looking at. Although the protocol is imperfect, not least because the United States has not ratified it and the original emission reductions were not ambitious enough, the protocol represents the only legally binding international commitment to greenhouse gas emissions. Without Kyoto, there's no legal imperative to reduce emissions and commitments would be limited to non-legally binding pledges. We know that for a subsequent commitment period to begin on 1 January 2013, amendments to the protocol must enter into force on or before that date. An amendment will enter into force 90 days after the date of receipt by the depository of an instrument of acceptance from three quarters of the parties to the protocol. Once they complete their domestic ratification processes and deposit their acceptance of amendments by the 3 October 2012. Thus in order to amend the protocol, changes would have to be made in Durbin this December to allow for the required six month notification period pursuant to articles 20 and 21 of the Kyoto protocol before changes could be adopted at COP 18 in December 2012. Thus a gap in commitment periods appears to be a real possibility. In the short to medium term, a gap in commitment periods would not directly affect the appliance, the application of the Kyoto protocol. The conference of the parties to the convention and the meeting of the parties to the protocol could continue to carry out their functions and decide on subsequent commitments at a later point in time. However, there would be no directly applicable emission reduction targets which could jeopardize the validity of the reporting processes and flexible mechanisms. If parties don't reach an agreement on Kyoto in Durbin, the only real hope for avoiding a gap between commitment periods is to make a provisional amendment to the protocol as provided for under article 25 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. An extension of the existing commitment period could also be provisionally applied before the end of 2012. Discussions on what would happen with Kyoto after 2012 have been ongoing particularly since 2005 when as you may recall those of you who have been following the process the parties established an ad hoc working group on further commitments for annex one parties under the Kyoto protocol pursuant to article 39 of the protocol to consider annex one commitments for the period beyond 2012. In addition, there is the ad hoc working group on long term comparative action, LCA which was initiated under the 2007 Bally Action Plan with the mandate to decide upon an agreed outcome on LCA and enhancing implementation of the UN FCCC. So we talk about the two tracks, the Kyoto protocol track and the long term comparative action LCA track. This second discussion track or LCA track made progress but didn't deliver the much hoped for and hyped legally binding agreement at COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009. However, the Cancun agreements of last December which were the outcome of COP16 do signal a desire to keep working under the LCA track with a legally binding agreement still the objective. If the Kyoto protocol is extended beyond 2012 then parties of the UN FCCC will likely require strong assurances or guarantees that the LCA track will set a timeline for agreement on an effective outcome for those who are not involved in the Kyoto protocol track itself. A number of legal form options have been promulgated for beyond the end of the first commitment period in 2012 and these we were discussing on the 9th of September. The business as usual option is to continue the Kyoto protocol with current annex one parties agreeing to a second round of targets for the post 2012 period. That's favoured in particular by the developing countries by the G77 and China. In addition it may be possible for parties to the protocol to continue to apply the core principles and mechanisms of the Kyoto protocol for a period of time or until a single legal agreement is adopted for ratification under the LCA track. This option may potentially and I rather hope it will be pursued by the European Union subject to progress being made under the LCA track which is the worry for European countries. Alternatively parties may decide to adopt a single new agreement to replace the Kyoto protocol which includes developed and developing countries and this is favoured but in a rather general way by Japan, Canada and Russia. The alliance of small island states favours a single new agreement which supplements the Kyoto protocol. There is of course also the option of a more bottom up incremental building blocks approach based on pledge and review that was really what came out of Copenhagen before Cancun put the process more on track with the UN process. While the US has advocated the introduction of an implementing agreement which could coexist with a legally binding agreement and is similar to a protocol and finally it may be possible to agree on political cooperation through cop decisions on ministerial declarations but that would be a weak option. I don't propose at this stage to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the various legal form options. In fact I think I've done enough discussing of that. If anybody wants to know more I can hopefully not get too technical a question but I'm happy to deal with some questions. Looking ahead to Durban it's clear that one of the major priorities for COP 17 should be to make progress in addressing the legal form for the next phase of the international climate regime. Of more immediate focus perhaps might also be an agreement on a transitional arrangement to bridge the increasingly unavoidable gap between the end of the first commitment period under the Kyoto protocol and a new agreement. Furthermore it is important that progress is made on the modalities and procedures for MRV for monitoring and evaluation for developed countries. There is an important role for the European Union I believe in making progress on these matters both at COP 17 and post Durban. As we can see European countries are very central to whether Kyoto continues and that's a really important issue also for developing countries. So it's very much to be hoped that the EU and Ireland and Ireland in particular post the period I've immediately been talking about when we take on again the presidency of the council in the first half of 2013 that we continue to play a constructive role in discussions on climate change and that the EU offers the type of leadership which the world I think has come to expect in particular frankly because of the lack of leadership from the United States and the unlikelihood of real global leadership in the near future. Furthermore I believe that the traditions in Ireland are identification and empathy with developing countries our own concept of metal that this can be mobilized to assist those who are less fortunate and who are suffering already as a result of food and water shortages which are exacerbated by the acute pressures of climate change. Given our history suffering the effects ourselves of a famine given the fact that we're a developing country without colonial baggage and our genuine and long standing commitment to development issues Ireland I believe is uniquely positioned to play a valuable role as a bridge between the EU and the developing world and Africa in particular. The Cancun agreements demonstrate that the UNFCCC process isn't dead it's not moribond and is in fact and in fact has generated a renewed sense of momentum in the run up to Durban. However the time for prevarication is over we cannot dodge the Kyoto protocol issue in Durban we need a legally binding agreement which is robust, ambitious, efficient and above all effective. MRFCJ is working as I said to encourage and facilitate discussion on this and we believe that good preparation for Durban is vital in order to resolve outstanding issues and build consensus on legal form so that the global economy might evolve along a more sustainable and low carbon trajectory. It's hard to talk about legal form without sounding very dry and technical and legalistic. So I want to end on a completely different note I want to end on words of Al Gore who has put this whole issue a great deal more trenchantly in a recent article in Rolling Stone which some of you may have seen and I quote him. The truth is this what we are doing is functionally insane if we do not change this pattern we will condemn our children and all future generations to struggle with ecological curses for many millennia to come. End quote. To me ecological curses translate into serious threats to all human rights hence the urgency of acting now and acting decisively. Thank you for being a great audience. Thank you very much.